iPhone vs. Samsung Galaxy Sales and User Adoption

Samsung recently released its newest smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S5 on April 11th. While there is currently no release date announced for the iPhone 6, Qriously, a mobile ad platform, has been tracking iPhone and Galaxy users’ sentiment towards the two most anticipated smartphones of the year. They reached out to both iOS users and Galaxy users and asked them if they would consider switching to the competitors device.

Not surprisingly the majority of users responded “Not Likely,” however what’s interesting is Galaxy owners appear more loyal to their devices with a higher week over week percentage of iPhone users declaring that they would consider the new Galaxy.

After Apple’s WWDC conference in early June, there was a small spike in Samsung users who considered switching to the new iPhone. This spike may have been correlated with the spike in press coverage over this conference as well, but regardless there was a solid number of Samsung users who may have been swayed into switching to the competition. The conference had a similar effect on iPhone users, but instead validated their smartphone choice; a significant number of folks who considered switching to Samsung changed their minds after they saw what iOS has to offer.

When the Samsung Galaxy S5 was released on April 11th, iPhone users were not swayed to change smartphones. In fact, the launch week showed the lowest percentage of iPhone users interested in switching to a Samsung Galaxy S5 during the 2.5 month increment Qriously was researching, about 24%. Less Samsung users also reported that they may be interested in switching to an iPhone 6 once the latest Samsung was announced as well, however that grew slightly in early May with the rumor of the iPhone 6 release in August. With that rumor, the percentage of iPhone users likely to switch to a Samsung S5 also dropped.

In terms of sales, Apple sold more than 5 million iPhone 5 units in 2012 and combined new iPhone sales topped 9 million with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in 2013. Samsung sold 4 million units of the Galaxy S4 over its launch weekend in 2013, whereas the iPhone 5 sold over 5 million units last year. If past numbers and the WWDC conference are any indication of the sales of the future iPhone 6, Apple should likely have another successful launch. These companies are neck and neck for the best smartphone, but according to the numbers, Apple is ahead. In fact, recent reports show that Samsung has most likely missed its own Galaxy S5 smartphone quarterly shipments by 25%. They shipped 15 million Galaxy S5 units in a quarter, and while this may seem like a big number, Apple dominated. Apple reported selling — not shipping — 43.7 million units during its second fiscal quarter, coming in at more than double the number of Galaxy S5 units Samsung shipped.

During mid-March through early June, Qriously found that more iPhone users were likely to switch to the Samsung Galaxy S5 than Samsung users were likely to switch to an iPhone. However, after the WWDC in early June, Samsung users have consistently been more likely to switch over to the iPhone for two consecutive weeks. The new iOS 8 has certainly got a lot of folks talking, but we will see if it lives up to its expectations with the potential August release and if Samsung users who are considering the iPhone will ultimately make the switch.

Meg Rahner
Writer
Meg is the PR Coordinator for CircleClick and a writer for MobileFOMO. She is from Erie, Pennsylvania and has a BA in Public Relations from Penn State University. She moved to San Francisco shortly after graduating in 2010 and loves life on the west coast. Since moving to SF, she has contracted for the Academy of Art University's Marketing team, LinkedIn's Recruiting Team, and is excited to be pursuing her passion for writing and PR in her current roles.
Follow me on twitter @megrahner